NOTE TO CHAPTER V. 



The following extract is from Mr. Seebohm's work on 

 The Geographical Distribution of the Charadriidae, or the 

 Plovers, Sandpipers, Snipes, and their allies : 



" But when w r e admit that the exhaustive arguments 

 in favour of the theory of Evolution, propounded by 

 Darwin in his remarkable work on the Origin of Species, 

 prove its truth, so far as speculations on such remote 

 events are capable of proof, we may at the same time 

 doubt whether natural selection can be in any sense the 

 cause of the origin of species. It has probably played a 

 very important part in the history of evolution ; its role 

 has been that of increasing the rapidity with which the 

 process of development has proceeded. Of itself it has 

 probably been absolutely powerless to originate a species ; 

 the machinery by which species have been evolved has 

 been completely independent of natural selection, and 

 could have produced all the results which we call the 

 evolution of species without its aid ; though the process 

 would have been slow had there been no struggle for life 

 to increase its pace." 



